*That’s a reference to “Big D” (USS Dallas) in the Hunt for Red October, you filthy minded heathens 
As I read a lot of the lists that seem to include the MC80, they always seem to gravitate to Home One (at least from my observations on this board) if you want to up firepower or Independence if you want to give your B-Wings magic legs. I'm of the opinion that Defiance might be better for a firepower build and that it can support the fleet almost as well as Home One. Before we take a look at Defiance let’s take a look at the MC80.
Note - Defiance doesn't really do anything for fighters except provide for extra damage so nothing in this article talks about taking Defiance over the Independence when you are trying to support fighters.
THE BOAT
The MC80 caused quite a stir when it first appeared. Lack of gunnery teams and stately movement made most skeptical that it could contribute enough to make that high buy in price worth it. After a few games of Wave 2 and the MC80 appearing with Ackbar, that has proven to be far from the case. As we go in depth discussing the MC80 we’ll assume you are using Ackbar because we are focusing on Defiance, Most of the other Rebel commanders don’t offer too much to Defiance because we are trying to take advantage of the innate firepower (Garm is great with Independence, Mon Mothma doesn’t do squat for MC80s, Dodonna isn’t too bad if you are feeling squirrely but Ackbar generally is just better with the MC80, and if you lose your MC80 you probably lost the game, even if it gets to be a zombie for a little while with Reeiken).
The stats at a glance however give you a very nice ship to build your fleet around. It’s tanky (equal to the ISD if you take shields into account, more so if you consider that it’s easier to move and regenerate shields than hull) and, with Ackbar, generally give you 8 dice broadsides. The major issue with the MC80 is its quite stately nature. You can fix this with engine techs which you probably should. Engine techs turns the MC80 into the AFII with an extra yaw and it’s important to your point investment to keep that firepower on target. The extra speed and yaw also means it should be almost impossible for anything going under speed 4 to get in front of you. Just some food for thought.
THE TITLE CARD
Defiance is a great card. For five points it let’s you add the dice of your choice as long as you shoot at someone who has already activated. It even lets you shoot black dice at long range. It’s like a free concentrate fire order every turn if you plan correctly. It can be used multiple times if you pull off positioning correctly because it can be activated once per attack. The dream is to fire off a double broadside and get to use Defiance twice.
The big kicker is that you can stack Defiance with a concentrate fire order. Take an Assault MC80 with Ackbar, Defiance and a concentrate fire order at long range. You’d normally be stuck rolling 6 reds which isn’t too bad but there’s something nice about rolling your full printed broadside on the card, plus Ackbar dice, at long range because you decided to use Defiance and your order to add two blues. On a ship as expensive as the MC80 it’s great to be able to add that kind of firepower.
Defiance also acts as an insurance policy. The front of the MC80 isn’t too bad with 3 dice, but it gets a lot scarier if you add 2 black dice with a concentrate fire order.
The drawback of course is that you have to wait for your target to activate first. So far I’ve found it more beneficial because ships can wander into range and you get to react to your opponent’s movement, but you have to stay flexible because a less powerful shot is better than no shot or sometimes you have to save your ship.
UPGRADES
Like the engine techs mentioned above, a lot of the upgrades are kind of predetermined by the beast that is the MC80. Leading shots is a great insurance policy and it’s even better with Defiance because you can add a blue dice at long range. Intel Officer is amazing on the Defiance because it gives the rest of your fleet some support because you almost always be choosing brace token for your opponent to discard (we’ll get to that below). Other than that, X17s are great because you should generally be throwing at least 7-8 dice per attack.
COMMANDS
You want to take concentrate fire orders to get the most out of your firepower and repair commands to protect your investment. My initial stack (when taking engine techs) looks like navigate, concentrate fire, and repair (or concentrate fire if I get a sense I might not need to repair at this point in the deployment phase). Navigate is great on the first turn when you have engine techs to make sure you get to shoot on the second and really helps board position. You may why should I pay 8 points to use engine techs once? That’s why I really implore people to try the Tantive 4 on a TRC90 when you take an MC80 with engine techs. Defiance naturally wants activate later anyway and it lets you use Engine Techs on demand and protect your investment in the MC80 with repair commands or augment its firepower. Plus you gotta keep those fat sides on target somehow and the extra 1 maneuver helps.
HOME ONE LIGHT
As noted in the intro, most tend to gravitate towards Home One. For two more points than Defiance, it is a great card and it gives you a way to freeze defense tokens. However, ECMs counter the extra accuracy at least once and at some point you are going to roll 4 double hits (w/concentrate fire) with a TRC90 and feel bad about turning one into an accuracy. Defiance can however operate like Home One, especially if you take an Intel Officer.
Assume the following barebones list (a lot of upgrades and additions not included just for simplicity)
Assume opponent has ISD with ECM, firefight starts at long range (everyone is in range)
TRC90
TRC90
TRC90
MC80 Assault w/Defiance, Ackbar, Intel Officer, X17s vs same with Home One (contrite fire commands)
Generally with Home One, the TRC90’s get to shoot freely without the opponent using brace (generally what everyone is trying to neuter) because of the accuracy result. Your opponent will most likely end up using the brace against Home One herself or using the brace with ECM, and losing it because of Intl, or when a TRC90 rolls something atrocious.
Now run it with Defiance. Defiance acts like Home One because your opponent will be too afraid to use his brace because he knows what’s coming. The reason I say this is because, as I mentioned before, you will almost always be rolling 8 dice at long range, at least two of which can be blue, or if you want to put the fear of God into him place two black dice next to Defiance on the board. If he uses the brace against the TRC90s feel free to feel like a boss and roll some black dice at range 5. Conversely, the benefit to Defiance is that with extra blue dice, an accuracy is more likely anyway so even if your opponent saved a token for Defiance they may not get to use it. Then even if they do manage to use a token they are going to lose it because of the Intel Officer. At the end of the day, both situations end up almost exactly the same since your opponent should be stripped of his brace or you got to push more damage through.
I concede that Home one is superior for controlling token use though because it’s just more consistent, especially when firing at multiple targets(I did say it was a good card, Defiance = Home One Light for a reason). You can force your opponent to make the hard ECM decision when you want. Defiance is just better at big game hunting because of the dice involved and Intel Officer still helps Defiance support the rest of the fleet. However, there are other fringe benefits to running Defiance that I’ve found to be really interesting.
First, Defiance helps to counteract gunnery teams. Home One requires you to keep everyone in range 5 which means that an ISD with gunnery teams can generally take a front arc shot against a TRC90 and your MC80. Of course it’s easy enough to say you can get around this with smart play but sometimes it can be tough because Home One can make movement a little predictable. When you take Home One, all of your ships are generally going to be heading in the same direction to start trying to form the ever popular conga line. Defiance doesn’t have this constraint so the TRC90s are free to fly wherever they need to be, generally behind and far away front the front arc of ISDs. It also opens up the ability to encircle your opponent by starting the game having your MC80 go one direction and the TRC90s going the other.
It also changes the damage focus. TRC90s with Ackbar and Home One are great. Everyone knows this but you start to notice that the firepower can really start to slip if the TRC90s are dead and Home One loses all its benefits. When you take Defiance, the focus shifts back to the MC80. You live and die by "Big D's" broadside. It’s also another reason why I’ve switched back to the Assault MC80 because it’s necessary to protect that kind of investment and the double defensive upgrades have kept me alive so far.
CLOSING
Try it. Just do it.
Note: I was going to include some general advice about facing MC80s, their weaknesses, and how to counter them but I realized that I was kind of speaking off the cuff because I’ve mostly played against Imperials. Instead of trying to finagle some tactics I invite you to reply with ideas. As for the article itself, this is more of an opinion piece so please feel free to disagree and poke holes in it.